Chemical reaction engineering methodologies for post‐contrastographic biomedical imaging analysis. Issue 3 (30th April 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Russo, Valentina; Di Paola, Luisa
• Is Part Of: Asia-Pacific journal of chemical engineering. Volume 9:Issue 3(2014:May/Jun.)
• Page Start: 354
• Page End: 363
• Publication Date: 2014-04-30
• Subjects: Chemical engineering -- Periodicals; 660
• DOI: 10.1002/apj.1803
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1932-2135

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main"> <title>ABSTRACT</title> <p>Post‐contrastographic techniques represent an innovative method to identify pathologies out of anomalous perfusion of specific drugs (contrast agent) in ill body regions. In this framework, pharmacokinetics provides general models to describe the spatio‐temporal distribution of drugs within the body: Simple model relies on the concept of compartment, that is, a body region with uniform properties. So, whole body can be thought of as made up of different compartments, interacting with each other by mass flows; this scheme reminds us of the typical sketch of a chemical process, whose active elements are tanks exchanging mass flows with each other.</p> <p>In this framework, chemical engineering fundamentals (transport phenomena and chemical reaction engineering) provide the basic tools to represent the dynamic evolution of biological systems, once they can be sketched in terms of interacting compartments. The quantitative analysis, thus, is based on physically representative models, whose parameters describe physiological properties.</p> <p>In this work, we present a physiologically based pharmacokinetics model based on a joint, multiscale representation of body seen at global (systemic compartment) and local (region of interest compartment) scales: This model is able to face different limits of benchmark physiologically based pharmacokinetics models (Tofts, Brix, and Patlak), providing meaningful and quantitative model parameters, descriptive of contrast‐enhanced physiological key properties. We apply the model to the analysis of dynamic magnetic resonance imaging with a contrast agent perfusion in Crohn's disease. All in all, we are going to demonstrate the method that can discriminate among ill and sane tissues, whereas the systemic parameters remain substantially invariant.</p> <p>The model complies very well with clinical data, assessing the vascularization degree through characteristic properties (permeation characteristic time), and the spatial analysis assesses the vascular distribution around the suspect lesions. This result fosters the application of this class of models for the clinical assessment of hypervascularizing pathologies.</p> <p>All in all, out of their classical field of application, chemical reaction engineering traditional methods are shown to help in the quantitative analysis of biomedical images, which are, as for now, the cutting‐edge methodologies in the post‐contrastographic imaging field. © 2014 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.</p> </abstract>